A "peace caravan," which has spent a week travelling through Mexico to protest against drug-related violence and the "war on drugs," crossed the border into the US at Juárez-El Paso on June 11. Mexican poet Javier Sicilia, who led the National Citizen Caravan for Peace with Justice and Dignity, appealed for a similar citizen mobilization in the US. "The US has a grave responsibility in all this, when its citizens remain silent, they are imposing war on us," said Sicilia, whose son was recently killed in drug-related violence. "Americans have to realize that behind every puff of pot, every line of coke there is death, there are shattered families." Sicilia and his convoy of about 20 vehicles began their journey in Cuernavaca, south of Mexico City, and have criss-crossed the country, holding rallies against the escalating violence and militarization along the way. (RFI, Spain, June 12; BBC News, AP, June 11)

Soldiers on patrol in the Mexican border town of Ciudad Camargo, Tamaulipas, discovered a warehouse where two armor-plated "tanks" were being constructed after clashing with gunmen said to belong to the Gulf Cartel, a military source said June 6. Two of the gunmen were killed in a firefight, while two hid inside the warehouse. Authorities said the tanks—actually big trucks fitted with steel plates—were to patrol smuggling routes to the US. Officials said their armour could only be breached with anti-tank grenades. Mexican authorities say they have discovered more than 100 such improvised "narco-tanks" in recent months, which the media have dubbed 'Los Monstruos," or the Monsters. Last month police in Jalisco found a 2011 Ford F-Series Super Duty Truck with steel armor plates welded to almost its entire exterior, along with a folding battering ram on the front bumper. The homemade armored vehicle also had gun ports and a rotating turret. The tank was found abandoned in a rural area contested by the warring Sinaloa Cartel and Cartel de Jalisco Nueva Generacion. (Poder 360, June 7; BBC News, AFP, June 6)

Acting on what military authorities said was an anonymous tip, Mexican soldiers raided the home of casino and off-track betting magnate Jorge Hank Rhon the early morning of June 4 in Tijuana, in the northwestern state of Baja California. The military reported finding 88 firearms, 9,298 rounds of ammunition, 70 chargers and one gas grenade. Hank Rhon, a politician in the centrist Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) and Tijuana's mayor from 2004 to 2007, was arrested on charges of illegal possession of weapons, a federal crime, along with 10 bodyguards and other employees. The authorities flew Hank Rhon to Mexico City late in the day for questioning.

Two undocumented Cuban migrants being held at a jail in the border town of Tapachula in Mexico's southern Chiapas state were hospitalized after 21 days on hunger strike May 26. The local Fray Matias de Cordova y Ordoñez Human Rights Center said that the 11 jailed migrants—nine Cubans, a Guatemalan and a Dominican—went on hunger strike to demand their liberty after being arrested following what authorities called a "riot" (motín) at a detainment center of Mexico's National Immigration Institute (INM). The detained migrants were awaiting transfer to Mexico City after being apprehended at the Guatemalan border. The "riot" seems to have been an escape attempt, in which nine migrants succeeded in fleeing the detainment center. (EFE, May 26; Noticias Sin, Dominican Republic, May 24)

Some 500 people marched in Guadalajara, capital of the western Mexican state of Jalisco, on May 20 to demand that the federal and state governments honor their commitments to protect land that is sacred to the Wixárika (Huichol) indigenous group. The protesters' main focus was the 22 concessions that the federal Economy Secretariat has given to First Majestic Silver Corp (FMS), a Canadian mining company, to extract gold and silver in some 6,000 hectares around Real de Catorce in the north central state of San Luis Potosí. They say this was done without the consent of affected indigenous groups.

The Mexican government is violating its own laws on genetically modified organisms (GMO) in the way it handles experimental corn crops, according to a complaint the Greenpeace organization has filed with federal environmental protection authorities. The group charges that the government has failed to monitor experimental transgenic corn adequately, has allowed the corn to be planted on private farms, and hasn't ensured that the plants are disposed of properly after cultivation.

Nine indigenous Mixe residents at the remote Oaxaca municipality of Santiago Choápam were killed and some 20 wounded when they were ambushed on a mountain road May 14. The ambush took place near the hamlet of El Portillo as the campesinos were making their way from their homes at La Tani hamlet to the municipal center for a political rally ahead of extraordinary elections called for Choápam after the results of December polling were annulled due to reported irregularities. The community, near the Veracruz state line, is harshly divided between two political factions—one led by the family of a former state deputy with the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), Dámaso Nicolás, the other by César Mateos of the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD). Mateos accuses Nicolás of being a "cacique" (political boss) who maintains power over the municipality through corruption and intimidation, despite the fact that it elects its leaders through the traditional indigenous process called usos y costumbres (uses and customs), in which candidates ostensibly have no party affiliation. (Cronica de Hoy, OEM-Informex, May 15; Excelsior, Diario Oaxaca, May 14)

Quetzalcóatl Leija Herrera, the president of the Center of Studies and Projects for Integral Human Development (Ceprodehi) in the southern Mexican state of Guerrero, was found dead in the early morning of May 4 near the main plaza in Chilpancingo, the state capital. According to the Forensic Medical Service, he was been badly beaten, especially on the head, and died of the injuries.